Flowing with Gratitude

Hey there how ya doin? My name is Robert, nice to see you again. If I've not met you yet, nice to meet you. Vinyasa Flow. That's what you're about to get into so, we're gonna start in child's pose.

Alright and I'll give you some cues along the way. If there's any point at all during the practice where something doesn't feel quite right. You wanna pause, you wanna take a few breaths. Just pause the camera, pause the video, whatever you wanna do. And catch back up, okay there's no need to force anything whatsoever.

Alright, I wanna make this awesome for you. So without further ado, child's pose. I personally, in the beginning like to start child's pose with my knees wide, it gives me a little more space in my stomach to breathe so. Knees wide, untuck the toes, drop back feel free to stretch your arms out toward the front of the mat if you'd like to relax the arms a little bit more, drop the elbows down. Maybe even slide them back, bring your head toward the the hands as you stack them.

And what might feel nice is if you just kinda move your hips from side to side. Begin to feel your body as it is. begin to pay a little bit more attention to how your breath is flowing. I wanna create longer extended versions of your inhalation and exhalation. Keep in mind also that this posture, child's pose if you need to pause at any time is a really nice place to come and regroup alright.

So stretch the arms out toward the front of the mat. Draw your hands toward one another and we'll get a little side stretch from child's pose, so as far back as you can reach your hips, keep them far back and begin to walk your hands especially the right hand up toward the center left portion of your mat. Keep reaching the right seat back. Try to find a comfortable place for your head and neck. Keep walking, walking so it's like a little lateral stretch so you might be able to find some sensations up through the right side of your body.

Take a nice full breath into that. Exhale release. Okay keep the length you've got there, kinda crawl your fingers back toward center and over to the other side. Over to the right. You can like really claw those left finger tips.

Claw out right. At the same time keep reaching your seat back. Find a comfortable place for your neck and head. Breathe right, so spacious breath. Spacious breath, long, extended inhalations and exhalations.

Good. Crawl back to center. Hands are about shoulder width so you can look at your shoulders and stretch your arms out shoulder width and come up into tabletop. So you might wanna bring your knees a little more toward one another. Toward underneath your hips.

And my hands are pretty far extended out so I'm gonna bring them back just a little bit. Tabletop. Spread your fingers nice and wide. Toes are either tucked or untucked. Drop the belly, lift your sit bones, maybe even close your eyes for this portion here as you lift your seat, belly down, arched back, shoulders pulling away from your neck and head.

Elbows pointing toward your thighs. Chest forward, look forward, breathe in. And as you exhale draw the chin to the chest. Tailbone draws down and then pull the belly up and in rounding your back. That's the exhalation.

Inhalation, so match your inhalation with the movement or the movement with your inhalation right. Exhale. Inhale cow pose. Good exhale cat pose. And one more round, breathe in.

And breathe out. Inhale back into a nice flat back. Extend your right leg back. Adjust yourself so you stay on your mat. So the right leg is back as if you're in like a plank pose right so there's that much attention to the muscle activity there.

You're hips are even and square. Once you feel steady here, begin to kinda bring a little more weight onto your right arm, and extend your left arm out. Thumb is up. Belly nice and tight. Back flat or working toward flat.

Spine long, now life your right toes up. This is called bird dog. So see how much length you can get. Through the left fingertips all the way out through the right foot. Your heel or your toes.

Lets take a couple knee to elbows. So breathe in and get long. Almost like you would in cat pose right. And now, or cow pose, and now exhale kinda round it out and bring the elbow to the inside of your right knee. And your chin to the chest.

Really push through that right hand. Good inhale. Exhale. Inhale. Exhale.

Inhale get long. And exhale both limbs back down. Extend your left leg back, heel down, your still on that right arm. So if you need to rest it, turn the wrist over, go for it. Or just flow right open into side plank.

Open up the chest, take a couple of variations with your arm right, that left arm might wanna reach long like an extended side angle version right. You can also put the hand behind the head, open up the elbow a little bit. Lift that left arm back up. And notice how maybe what I did was I took this right foot and kicked it over a little bit for more balance. Now lift that left foot up.

Okay so now play around here. How does that feel? Maybe even from here you bend that left leg take hold of the foot and pull the heel toward the seat. Mindful of your left knee of course. So you may feel this, this stretch through your left quad, maybe up through the hip flexers.

Roll the chest open as much as you can. Still stabilizing and holding yourself up. Maybe even practice pushing the left foot into the hand lengthening that left arm. So now you're kinda rocking a side plank half bow pose kind of a thing. You're still breathing fully, completely.

Alright cool now release that, take that left foot, kinda reverse the whole thing right. Foot comes down, left hand comes down, knee comes down. Take one full breath here. And let a long exhale out. One cat cow inhale.

Exhale. Inhale back into a nice flat back. Alright now extend your left leg back. Okay. So make sure here, watch you know you want always to have this kinda like joint stacking action happening okay.

Breathe deep breathe full. Breath falls in falls out right. Turn your left hip down toward the mat. Right hip back and reach your right arm long. Once you feel good here, lift your left foot up.

Get long. Get as long as you can and notice if you're kinda dropping the belly a little bit. Brace the mid section and also pay close attention to dumping here right. See if you can extend your tailbone back. Neutralize the pelvic region.

Breathe. Three times knee to elbow. So breathe in like a cow pose right so there's this nice long extension on the spine. A little mini arching. And then exhale rounding.

Inhale. And exhale. Inhale exhale. Inhale long. And exhale.

Pause one full breath. Exhale open the mouth. Nice. Extend your right leg back. Heel down.

Slide the left toes a little bit for stability and balance. And find that placement for your left hand where it feels totally supportive. Right your shoulder feels good. Alright, now slide open. Get that little adjustment.

So reach out but then reach in. Watch my shoulder blade, how it kind of like is now I've disconnected. Now its shh extended and now my back is strong. Get a little length and side stretch here. Any kind of natural kind of instinctual movement in the shoulder is always welcome.

It's a tricky area in the body. Lift the right foot, play with that. So if you've got that right leg lifted and its straight. Firm up through the glutes right. Strong through that right side of your rear.

Play around with maybe bending. Stretching the heel toward your seat. Opening the chest at the same time. There's a lot going on here right. There's balance, focus, breath work.

Stretching, strengthening, so many things. So if your having a hard time with it, go easy on yourself. Just stay with your breath. Good push the foot into the hand. Open up the thigh, right thigh stretch, hip flexers.

A little bit of a back bend if you will. Nice now slowly right. Release the foot. Extend it out. Big breath in here.

And now exhale the right arm down. Right knee down. One full breath here in cow pose. Exhale cat. Back into a neutral position.

Take one little wrist stretch here. So turn your left hand over lean back a little bit. Left hand down, turn the right over. Lean back. Just kind of play around with that.

There's also this option right. You can turn your hands around. Play around there. Okay. Spread the fingers wide.

Create that foundation for downward dog. So take a breath in as you curl your toes. Exhale down dog. So sometimes it's nice to actually for the first dog pose, is take your feet about as wide as the mat. And with a little bend in the knees you really do find a little more freedom here.

To ensure and enable you to get a little more length in your spine. Play around with the neck right. Make sure you've got enough like freedom in the neck. Freedom in the breath. Play around with straightening one leg, straightening the other.

Good move your hips a little bit. Now from here, we're gonna walk up to the front of the mat. So if it's a big struggle for you and your hamstrings are just on fire right. Go ahead and get it over with quick. If you have the freedom in your legs to walk slowly do that.

So maybe you take your right foot straighten it out a little bit. Lengthen out the right leg. I prefer to come up onto my fingertips, that gives me a little bit more space. Left foot up. Deep breath in.

Breath out. Inhale. Exhale. And so on. Another two breaths here.

So I've just taken my right foot. Maybe now I even come up and get a long in the spine. Breathe in. And exhale. Same thing left foot up.

Inhale. I'm gonna actually put my hands in my hip crease push my hips back flatten out my back an I get this sense of adjustment right this lengthening adjustment in my spine. Breathe in here. Hold onto your elbows and hang for a moment. Maybe even wrap your arms behind your your calves if you, if that's available to you.

I personally am not the bendiest person right. I've been doing yoga a long time. But my focus is not necessarily on becoming the stretchiest of dudes. I'm still really focused on maintaining muscular strength. So I don't care if I can straighten my legs and touch the floor, it doesn't matter to me.

I just wanna feel a sense of freedom and mobility. Move freely in my body. Alright big breath in exhale everything. With the head, like for the first time, we'll be coming from this position quite a few times and for the first one, if it feels okay in your back I want you to roll up slowly. So get lazy in your arms.

Get super lazy in your neck and head. Your shoulders, put a slight bend in the knees. Begin to kinda like tuck the tail bone a little bit. And then round round it out. Get lazy, super lazy.

And when you come all the way up right the shoulders roll open the head sorta tips back just a little bit so sort of like awakening here. And take the arms up take a big sweeping breath in. Exhale draw the palms to the chest. Do that two more times. Breathe in.

And breathe out. One more time. Nice deep breath in. Press your thumbs into your sternum the center of your chest take a moment to close your eyes. Ad really settle into the feeling of your breath flowing in and out of your body.

The way it feels now. You know even if it doesn't feel great right, we've all got our moments, our days, our weeks, our months where our body doesn't feel great. But maybe for now, for this moment as your body is right, just acknowledge like this is my breath. This is like my inhalation my exhalation. Thank you, gratitude for that.

This is my body, this is my physical body with all of it's aches and pains all of it's possible disabilities or whatever, wherever it is, can you for a moment be thankful for that. And have genuine gratitude and this sense of contentment. Okay it has this, it's got that. I feel this pain, I feel that pain. I feel super awesome, whatever it is, I'm content with where it is.

But I'm here practicing and doing my best. I'm showing up for myself. Let that kinda carry you through the rest of the practice. This is my body, this is my breath. And I am grateful for it as it is.

Okay just consider that, if you don't like any of that, drop it. Let it go. Let the arms come down, open up your eyes. We'll flow a little bit. Inhale bring the arms up.

Exhale into a forward bend. Inhale get long in the spine come up halfway breathe in there. Exhale step the right foot back. Up onto your fingertips. Maybe kinda like straighten the left leg.

Bend it. Open up through the hips a little bit. Notice where you may be holding any stress or tension. The exhale my friends, the exhale is the magic breath. I promise you.

If you can get into the practice of exhaling a little more often throughout the day. Whenever you start to feel any tension or stress. Or in these postures, take a breath in. And exhale. I don't know it just feels nice.

So let's take a twist. Tense up through your fingertips. Use a block if you've got a block but keep your spine long. I actually like to kinda take my hand like so, so my knuckles come down like this, my thumb support's right there and then open up. Little opening rotation, so you've got two things happening here.

Which is nice, you've got a lunge. And a twist so and you have your breath. One more breath here. Bring it on down. Step the left foot back to meet your right.

Take a breath in. And exhale lower down. Inhale maybe just rock out a cobra for the first one alright so lift the chest lift your palms. Try to keep the tops of your feet pressing down. Legs strong.

Relaxed in the neck and head. Breathing here. Breathe out lower. Casual in the hands. Inhale cobra.

Exhale table. Curl the toes under. Breathe in and breathe out downward dog. Take the right leg, lift it up. Let's even open the hip a little bit so lift that leg up, bend it and roll open as much as you can.

I find it really helpful to tent the fingertips here. It gives me a little bit more like sensation up through that right side. Right then maybe you can move a little bit. One more time here. And then step that right foot.

All the way up. Tent the fingers. Get that little hand position. Tent fingers, block hand, knuckle flat, you choose and roll open for the twist. Right arm down, step the left foot up to meet your right.

Exhale. Inhale. Exhale. Inhale. Exhale palms to the chest.

Inhale arms up. Exhale dive down. Inhale half lift. Both feet back into plank on the exhale and lower. Inhale cobra, this time curl the toes and push up and back into downward dog.

Lift your left leg up this time. Spill the hip open. Maybe even lift your right heel up a little bit and then press it back down. Tent up through those fingertips. Find a little stretch.

Maybe close it off for a moment, breathe in and breathe out open. Now step the left foot all the way up. And the right. Exhale. Inhale.

Exhale. Inhale. And exhale. Breathe in reach up. Try the arms out this time.

They call it like a swan dive right. So exhale swan dive. Might feel a little more freeing. Inhale get long in the spine. Exhale step back into plank pose and lower.

This time we're lowering halfway. Chaturanga right, low push up. Inhale upward dog. Maybe stew here for a moment. Kinda check it out, elbows in.

Try to stay away from this and that right. So freedom in the neck. Elbows and arms in toward the rib cage. Shoulders back, chest up, strong legs. Now feel for a moment right, before we come into downward dog.

Feel your legs strong and your belly okay. Now curl your toes under. And really strong in your thighs and your belly. Use those muscles to pull yourself up up up and away. Breath in breath out.

Lift your right leg up, inhale. Exhale knee to the elbow. Inhale knee to the nose right down the center. Inhale. Knee to the left elbow, little cross over.

Inhale send it high. And exhale all the way up to the front of the mat. We're gonna keep that back heel lifted. Gonna softly bend the back knee. High lunge.

Alright. So make sure you're not on a tight rope. Feet are hip width. Let's open up the arms a little bit. So take the arms like so.

Pull them back field goal shape right. Pull the elbows back. Strong back, open chest. Now lift your chest up a little bit. Take the arms back behind you, interlace your fingers.

Pull the chest forward, open up the shoulders for a moment. Release the arms. Bring the back heel down. Lengthen your stance a little bit. Take a breath in.

Exhale right, when in doubt breathe. Warrior two. Couple cues, feet grounded, right knee toward the right pinky. Shoulders stacking over the hips. Arms nice and long steady gaze.

Now reverse warrior. So left hand reaches gently to the back leg. Turn the right palm up, reach up. If you're super bendy go ahead and reach all the way back. For me it feels nice just to reach straight up.

Breathe in here and now windmill the arms down. Lift the back heel. Step back into plank. Breathe in, exhale lower down half way. Inhale upward dog.

Exhale downward dog. Lift your left leg up, breathe in. Knee to the left elbow breathe out. Inhale send it high. Knee down the center line.

Inhale. And knee toward the right elbow. Inhale send it high. Exhale step it all the way up. Wiggle around in there, find your position.

Exhale. And now inhale. Remember feet hip width. What I wanna in like find your arms right. So field goal if that works.

If you wanna just take the arms straight up go for it. But for about five breaths, once you find your position in the lunge. Steady your gaze. And then close your eyes. You can see, well you're closing your eyes but, if you watch this again with your eyes open.

You can see how much I'm focusing. How much work and effort it takes to stay up. All the work in my ankles. My brain. Keep breathing.

And exhale warrior two. Maybe even keep your eyes closed right. And if you need to cue off me a little bit go for it. But once you get that posture right. Feels good close your eyes you know.

Just be in the experience right. Finding some sense of pleasure. In the experience. Doesn't always have to be sugar coated pleasure right. Sometimes it's difficult and it's challenging.

Now can you find some sense of ease and relaxation in the challenge. Right hand rest gently. Turn your left palm up. Reverse warrior, big breath in here. And now exhale, wind mill those arms down.

Spin the back heel up. Step back into plank. Now from here you're gonna take your left hand. Bring it over toward the center of the mat a little bit. And stagger your heels over.

You can also stack. Alright you choose. Open up side plank. Important. You're not disconnected.

What I want you to do is, really pull that shoulder blade in to meet the other one right, right meets the left. And then up. Little shaking a little wobbling. Muscles are working. Good, right arm comes down.

And just because we can we'll throw one push up in. So strong legs, strong core. Strong upper body. Lower down breathe in, breathe out. Right hand.

Staggered or stacked feet, set it up. Okay. Left arm up, make sure your shoulder blades are drawn toward one another. This like sense of scapular stabilization. Might be a good word for it.

And your low right waist is helping to support you. Low right waist core region. Hold shake breathe. Good left arm comes down. Throw in another push up right.

Because we can. Lower down, press up. Breathe in here. Breathe out lower halfway. Roll through upward dog on the breath in.

Downward dog on the breath out. Nice healthy breath in, big breath out. Look forward, lets take a couple steps, couple mini steps. Maybe a jump to the front of the mat. I'm just gonna step my right then my left.

Exhale. Inhale. Exhale. Inhale. Arms out in front.

Chair pose exhale. So try not to round here. Lift your chest, shoulders back. You don't have to come down super far right, to make this affective. Mindful that you're not tipping too far forward right.

So draw the tailbone down a little bit. But don't overly tuck it right. Find the neutral pelvis. If you feel like lifting your arms up, lift your arms up. You find your range of motion.

Breathe. Make sure your feet are pointing forward. Maybe even lift your toes a little bit. Kinda get into the bones of the feet pressing downward. Press through your heels.

All the way up, deep breath in. Maybe as you do a little mini baby back bend. And palms to the chest exhale. Remember this is my breath. This is my body as it is.

And I am grateful for it. Lets go through one more series here. So inhale. Exhale. Inhale lift halfway.

One exhale takes you all the way down to half push up or low push up, chaturanga right. Inhale. Start to firm up your legs and your core. Taking you to downward dog. Breathe in here as you lift your right leg high.

Knee to elbow again. Lets go three right to the elbow. Exhale. Step it all the way up on the next exhale. Good.

Warrior two, back heel down. Circle up and back. Straighten the front leg. Now bend it. Arms up over head as you straighten.

Bend right forearm on that right thigh without slumping down space right. Left arm up, little extended side angle. You have options to bring your left arm straight up or maybe a little side bend. Good. Reverse warrior breathe in.

And breathe out back into warrior two. Straighten the front leg and shorten your stance a little bit. Alright, triangle pose. So this kind of deserves a couple of cues. So it's not a big warrior two stance.

It's a little more shallow. And then straighten the leg, put a little tiny bend in it. Now your right hip, pull it back. So you're not, you're hips are not wide open in this one. This version.

Hips back, little micro bend. Now reach. From your right hip create a ton of length out through the right side of your body. Through the fingertips and then hinge down without crunching and crouching right. Keep length.

Length in your legs, length in your torso and your arms. So you don't have to touch the floor. You notice I won't. I'll touch my calf. And then nice big left arm reaching up.

Might be helpful for you to press into the ball of your right foot. Look down, look out in front. Left hand on the left hip. Look out in front of your right foot. Bend that leg a little bit.

Okay. Now you might wanna use a block or something. And I'll actually adjust so that I'm on my mat. But if I reach back just a little bit. Keep that same position you were just in.

Balance half moon okay. So a little bit of this, so a little bit of lift up. Right there. If you feel like boom I nailed it. Stay right there or let the fingertips drop down a little farther.

The right fingertips. Turn your hip open. Toes open. And then that left arm up. I'm gradually taking my gaze Ahh.

From straight down, what pose is that? Don't know that pose do you? Anyway you're gonna fall out of it. That's fine. Right so if you fall out of it like this, just come right back up take a breath in, who cares.

Big deal you just fell out of a pose. No big deal right. So now you're gonna refocus. Reset and I'll just reiterate. Well I never really said it to begin with.

But I'll say it again as if I did say it before. This is one of the hardest balancing poses I have ever, like in the beginning I could not do it. So if you're having trouble with it, trouble, difficulty, it's all good. It's practice right. So we're gonna do it again.

So my gazing points down. And eventually once I get it in I'll take my gazing point over here, here, here and maybe even up but that becomes very hard so here we go. Left leg up. Not balancing my fingers on anything. I'm reaching that left arm up.

Slowly. Ha see it's hard. Aw but this is a cool balancing pose too. Right, I don't know the name but, anyway find your exit. Let's come back into warrior two.

It's okay to get sloppy sometimes right. Stay here practice that a few times if you'd like. So it's called the half moon. It's a good one. Alright, so here we go we've come back.

We've come out of it, we've come back into reverse. Let's come on down and kinda wipe it away with a little transition. So come back into plank, breathe in. Breathe out. Breathe in.

And breathe out. So right about now, most of us, including myself, especially because I'm on camera, I'm like aw man, why couldn't I have just nailed that right. I could do that, or I could take a breath in. And a breath out. And let it go.

And who knows maybe the other side'll be different. Okay left leg bring it up and bring it in. Bring it up. Bring it in. Bring it up.

Bring it in. Last one breathe in step it. Land it. Back heel down. Whoo.

Warrior two. Pause. Straighten it. Maybe take the arms up for a moment. This can be done over and over and over.

This is a nice little. Movement sequence. So if you feel like doing this a few times. Inhale straighten reach up. Exhale land warrior two.

Extended side angle. Left arm left thigh. Push away. Ton of space here right. Otherwise you're here.

Reach up with the right. Create a little angle on that right arm if you'd like. Extended side angle. Play around with the wrist, stretch. Explore.

Okay. Back into warrior two, little reverse for a moment. Good. Landing warrior two, take your hands on your hips for a moment and shorten your stance. Triangle.

So left hip. Little bend here, if I don't bend it now I'm, I'm really stretching and straining behind my knee and I don't want that so little bend, grounding through the feet. Reach. Triangle pose. There it is, I've got a nice long stretch through my left leg.

Open and spacious across my chest. A kinda strong in my back. Moving my neck around. Breathing. Good, come all the way back up.

Hands on the hips. A little bend, and now it's like, target. Alright, you've totally forgotten about the other side. Now we're gonna play around. Right hand on the right hip.

And a little, phew. You can keep a little bend in that left leg. Good, do your best, do your absolute best. Don't worry. Good warrior two.

I exited right into warrior two when I was about to fall out so that worked out my, that worked out for me on that one. So back into warrior two right, you've had some fun there, feel free to play around on that side once again. For some reason I was able to balance a bit better on my left. Reverse warrior breathe in, breathe out, windmill down step back, last little transition vinyasa here. So breathe in, and breathe out halfway down.

Upward dog again. And downward dog. So even though I feel like alright, I kinda got that balance down on that side. Not gonna hang onto that success either right. That's done, breathe in.

Breathe out. Onto squat pose. Look forward. And maybe play around with like jumping the feet up. If not step up right.

Step with your right, or your left. Or maybe even tent those fingertips bend and land, do it your way. Squat pose, malasana. If you struggle with malasana right, it's hard for you to keep your heels down, you can always roll up a blanket or a towel and put your heels up on it. That'll create some freedom for sure.

So after a few moments in squat pose. You're version of squat right. You know there's all kinds of things you can do. You can open up your arms. You know.

That sorta thing. But we're gonna have a little fun now. We're gonna play around with crow pose. Okay something that I think a lot of people are fearful of but, give it a shot, see what you can do. So gonna come out of squat.

What you wanna do is kinda set up where your feet. So the way I like to set up is my heels will be lifted. Like this is kinda like, I played baseball a lot when I was younger so this is like catcher position. So find that catcher's position. Heels up and then it's important, because ultimately we're gonna be on these.

We're gonna be balancing on these our hands. So bring the hands down. Six inches or so from your thumbs. Get as much space as you can in your fingers right. And for the first version you can see pretty well I think from this side, is if you you bring your knees, as opposed to bring your knees all the way up here which is maybe how you've seen it if you've never done this.

Maybe bring the knees here to the elbows. Alright so if you bring the knees to the elbows and you begin to press the elbows into the knees. And then the knees fight back against that elbow pressure. So there's this like khew kinda feeling right. Got that, khew.

Think that works. Now ya lift up. Keep pressing pressing pressing. And then flirt with maybe one toe. Then the other.

Maybe both. Then you bring it back down. If you've just tried that right, and you were just like no way I'm gonna fall flat on my face. Join the 100,000 people who have as well right. But maybe if you're at your house and you got some cushions, put some cushions out there.

That'll give you a little security. Alright. So remember. Knees here. Hands together, press and lift.

If you feel like you've got the ability to bring your knees a little higher. Bring your knees up onto the upper shelf of your triceps right your upper arms. Lean forward. Stack, lift, balance. Come on out.

Say to yourself, I did my best and let's come down to our seat. So. Right after crow, go ahead and meet me here in the seated posture, we'll do a little twist. Right hand to the left knee. Spine long, reach back behind you with that left arm and kinda rinse out whatever whatever needs or feels like it needs to be rinsed out.

Whether it's in your gut or your spine. Come over to the other side. Just make sure you're not rounding right. Really maintain this sense of length in the spine. And back over to center.

Maybe one more time one way, one more time the other right. Take one forward bend here. So breathe in, breathe out. Come all the way back up to sit. Bring your palms together.

Take a moment, close your eyes. This is my body, this is my breath. As it is right here, right now. This is my body, this is my breath. As it is, right here, right now and I'm grateful for it.

Doesn't mean that this is how it'll be forever right. Roll out my mat, I'll practice yoga. Whatever your version is right. But you'll show up for yourself, do the work. And you'll feel better possibly.

So anyway thank you. Thank you, thank you for joining me. I hope this is useful and helpful for you. Namaste.